Read this: Where oil rigs go to die

The world of offshore oil has seen cycles of boom and bust, huge investments in risky locations followed by project cancellations and layoffs. There’s the human cost, for sure, but there’s also a fleet of unused assets. What happens to them? How do we go from the shiniest, highest-tech, newest to the unwanted, underperforming, unprofitable? And what happens when we get to the end of an oil rig’s life?

The Transocean Winner oil drilling platform was on its way to the scrap yard when it fetched up on the shore of an island in the UK’s Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland. How it got there and what happened next makes for thrilling reading as a reporter followed its journey. Get a cup of coffee and follow along: